


Blood On My Shirt, Heart In My Hand

by DoreyG



Category: Vampyr (Video Game)
Genre: Developing Relationship, Established Relationship, Love Confessions, M/M, Mid-Canon, Post-Chapter 3
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-06
Updated: 2020-12-06
Packaged: 2021-03-10 00:00:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,413
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27674390
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DoreyG/pseuds/DoreyG
Summary: The moment he’d heard what’d happened at the Pembroke, and who it had happenedwith, he’d wanted to throw all responsibility to the wind and go sprinting down to the docks as soon as possible. But, alas, he wasn’t just a lowly grunt within the Guard of Priwen but the actual fucking leader.
Relationships: Sean Hampton/Geoffrey McCullum
Comments: 10
Kudos: 19
Collections: Mild Heart Attack 2020: Short Treats Collection





	Blood On My Shirt, Heart In My Hand

**Author's Note:**

  * For [greygerbil](https://archiveofourown.org/users/greygerbil/gifts).



The moment he’d heard what’d happened at the Pembroke, and who it had happened _with_ , he’d wanted to throw all responsibility to the wind and go sprinting down to the docks as soon as possible. But, alas, he wasn’t just a lowly grunt within the Guard of Priwen but the actual fucking leader. First there was Swansea and his new pet Ekon to argue with, then there were patrols to organise and youngsters to whip into shape, and _then_ there was a totally unrelated fucking Vulkod in Whitechapel that apparently needed all of his bloody attention. Just one thing after another until he wanted to punch the nearest fucking wall and run screaming into the night.

By the time he finally got free of all his obligations, it was almost dawn and he was out of his mind with worry. He got down to the docks from Whitechapel as quickly as he ever had, and probably quicker than any fucking vampire ever had either for that matter. He didn’t bother with fucking around, he knew where Sean would be if he still lived. He headed straight for the night shelter, his heart in his mouth in a way that it never had been before.

The building seemed peaceful from the outside, and remained peaceful even as he made his hasty way in. He even spotted Lottie Paxton scrubbing at the floor, and received a friendly nod from her as he passed by. For a moment he knew intense hope. Surely it couldn’t be that bad if the Paxton sisters were still about, making their way through life as best they could? Surely…

Unfortunately he knew that he wasn’t that lucky. He never fucking had been, not once in his life.

Sean was crumpled in front of his shrine, the one that he’d teased him about so many times before all this shit had gone down. He was prone on the floor, not moving even a little bit, and for a moment he forgot all sense and knew only a pounding sense of terror. He crossed the room in a few quick strides, threw himself down to the floor and put a desperate hand on Sean’s shoulder. “Sean? Speak to me, man.”

Sean blinked and shifted under his touch, and he felt a sharp moment of relief. One that immediately faded, as Sean took in a deep breath and turned to face him. “Geoffrey?”

To any uninitiated human Sean would’ve probably looked perfectly normal; a little tired and beaten up, but nothing out of the ordinary for the Sad Saint of the East End. But he wasn’t an uninitiated human, and so what he saw terrified and sickened him in equal measure. That inhumanly pale skin, contrasted with the lividity of those bruises. Those gleaming eyes, far more luminescent than on any actual human and with a sickly sheen of yellow over them. That faintest smell of _rot_ , like a corpse overdue for a grave.

Sean Hampton was a Skal. The man that he’d spent countless hours wooing and laughing with and fucking until he cried out in bliss was a Skal. And fuck, if his heart didn’t break at the knowledge.

“Geoffrey,” Sean was saying, blinking at him in _relief_. Like he didn’t notice that anything was wrong, like he didn’t see that he’d just become another fucking monster to put down. “Geoffrey, it _is_ you. Thank God. I wish you’d been here sooner, I wish you’d been here to talk to, but it doesn’t matter. You’re here now, you’re with me, and-”

“And I’ll bet you’ll soon be wishing I wasn’t,” he said, making his voice deliberately cold and distant, and drew sharply back from Sean’s attempted embrace. He told himself it was because he was disgusted at the thought of touching a Skal so intimately, but the pain of his heart in his chest told a rather different story. “It was all true, then?”

“What was true?” Sean frowned at him, and even knowing the truth - even knowing that this was just a monster crouched before him, just another leech to be taken care of for the good of humanity - he ached at the thought that he’d made Sean in any way upset. “Geoffrey, please, I don’t-”

He saw exactly the moment that Sean realised what was going on. The man stopped speaking all at once and stilled, his eyes gone wide and terribly focused as he stared at him.

"There we go," he said, and tried to be pleased when his voice emerged as something stridently confident instead of utterly wrecked. Maybe he should go pursue a career as an actor, once he was done tearing his own heart out of his chest. "You know, I didn't think that _you'd_ ever turn into a murdering, bloodsucking leech that needed to be put down for the good of humanity, but I guess you encounter surprises every day. Just the life of a hunter, I suppose."

"I haven't-" Sean blurted, and then stopped to lick his dry lips. Dry like a corpse's, because Sean was little more than a corpse now. "Geoffrey, please, you know me."

He managed to keep his expression neutral only with severe effort. "Do I?"

"I would hope so, considering how many nights a week you manage to find your way here," Sean snapped, his voice harsh with frustration. He hated that he genuinely wasn't sure if that was natural, or Sean turning into the bloodsucking leech he'd accused him of being. "Do you really think that I'm capable of that? Capable of _murder_?'

"It doesn't matter what I think- thought you were capable of," he said harshly, wincing over his soft hearted slip the moment that he'd made it. "It's what you're currently capable of that's the problem. And we, the Guard, have ample evidence of that."

"What evidence?" Sean demanded, his voice still not rising past politely persuasive but his frustration still clear in his eyes. 

"A trail of bodies, perhaps? Harriet Jones murdered and eaten in her sickbed?" He let out a harsh bark of laughter, tried to pretend that he was genuinely scornful instead of desperately trying to hide the shake of his voice. "I mean, you told me about her before. I knew she was an old cow who was more trouble than she was worth, but she didn't deserve an end like that."

"Geoffrey, really, she's not a cow," Sean said sternly, and he almost smiled for a moment at the familiar scolding tone before he remembered where they were. "And also, more importantly at present moment, she's not dead."

He scowled, even though he was well aware that Sean would probably see through it in seconds. "A likely story."

“Geoffrey, please,” Sean said, sounding even more desperate than before, and reached out to grab his hand in a tight grip. “She’s not dead, she’s alive and well and in a safe place. I haven’t killed anyone, I only helped a lost member of my flock to get to where she needed to be. I’m not going to kill anyone, I’m not that sort of person even now. _Believe_ me.”

Sean’s skin was cool. Not icy cold or obviously that of a corpse, but still so far from his usual human warmth - that usual human warmth that had been pressed up against him so many times in so many different ways - that he couldn’t help but be a little horrified by it. He knew that he should be yanking away, should be shoving Sean back in disgust and doing what had to be done without any further pause, but somehow he just couldn’t bring himself to do so. He kept staring at Sean instead, impossibly torn and hating every single moment of it.

“Geoffrey…”

“Say I do believe you, what then?” When he could finally bring himself to speak again, his voice emerged as a bleak croak. His life, formerly so very simple, now consisted of a thousand different possibilities and he had no idea what to do with any of them. “You can tell me a lot of fairy stories about how you haven’t killed anybody tonight, about how you’re still a good person and fundamentally yourself until the cows come home. But even if that is true, what chance does it have of lasting?”

Sean’s jaw set. He was a remarkably even tempered man by nature, even in the very worst of situations, but he had a decidedly stubborn streak that he’d long been drawn to. “A very high chance, I would say.”

“You’re a _Skal_ , Sean,” he said wearily, and still didn’t withdraw even at that reminder. God was he fucked, all of his carefully drawn lines melting away like chalk under the rain. “Do you even know what that means?”

He was expecting, at worst, a stubborn insistence that it couldn’t be that bad. Or, more likely, for Sean to hesitate a little and eventually admit that he had only the vaguest idea of the world that laid under their own and had thought of vampires as only a fairy story to scare credulous children. He wasn’t expecting Sean to frown at him for a long few moments more, and then to sigh as if he’d just decided that lying was some kind of mortal sin. “I know what it means, possibly in more detail than you do. I just don’t consider it an issue.”

That, on top of everything else he’d been through on this awe inspiringly shitty day, was almost too much. He blinked at Sean, narrowly resisted the urge to just bury his head in his hands and start screaming. “Excuse me?”

“There are certain things that I’ve kept secret from you throughout our time together, just as I’m sure that there are certain things you’ve kept secret from me. This isn’t some great sign that I’m turning into a monster, or that I was secretly a monster all along, it’s just the way our relationship has worked up until now. The way you’ve _wanted_ it to work up until now,” Sean said evenly, so evenly that he was forced to face the brutal truth of the matter and exactly how harshly it painted him. “So yes, I do know what a Skal is. I’ve known what a Skal is for a while now, as a matter of fact.”

“Fine. But have you seen what they can do?” He asked, not bothering to hide that he was reeling from the confession. With any other person he would’ve acted like a macho hunter incapable of being surprised by anything, with Sean he knew that the pretence was over before it had even begun. “Skals are killing machines, even more than the Ekon. They’re giant tick motherfuckers, who exist only to consume and thoroughly enjoy doing so.”

He heard Sean grit his teeth, again felt an absurd moment of regret at causing him even a moment of pain. “I’ll admit, they can be-”

“No, Sean, they _are_ ,” he said, and was surprised to find that his tone was factual instead of aggressive. Sean, even if he had turned into a monster, was having his usual effect of smoothing out all of his sharp edges without even trying. “They can’t help themselves. Ekon, that’s the posh bastard vampires who are generally in charge, can choose who they fuck over and when they fuck them over but Skals _can’t_. They’re consuming machines, made for literally nothing else and capable of nothing else. They can maybe control themselves for a while, though I’ve never seen a single one do so, but in the end they _always_ snap and they _always_ turn into beasts.”

There was obviously something in his words. Sean was staring at him with horrified sadness now, but none of that sadness was aimed at himself. “Oh, Geoffrey.”

“Which means that you’re going to snap,” he carried on, as the realization that Sean was sad for _him_ seeped into his mind. “And you’re going to turn into a beast, and you’re going to start eating people… And then where will we be?”

“First of all, you’re wrong. There are plenty of Skals that can contain themselves. It’s an effort, a huge effort that seems to cost them an awful lot, but so are a lot of things in life. The way I see it, Geoffrey, it’s just like not eating a lot of sweets even when you can, or ignoring the urge to smack people over the back of the head even when they deserve it.” Sean gave him a pointed look at that, and he almost started to smile before he reluctantly remembered himself. “Second of all, even if I _was_ at risk initially-”

“You were,” he said as calmly as he could, which admittedly wasn’t very fucking calmly. “Are.”

“I don’t think that’s going to be a problem any longer,” Sean continued, sending him another pointed look that really shouldn’t have calmed him in this fucking situation but somehow seemed to help. “And I’m not saying that because of my faith, before you start insulting me, I’m saying that because…”

Sean trailed off, glanced back at his little shrine again - the proof of his devotion to some big guy in the sky, who even he still kind of felt was watching him all the time - with a complicated expression passing over his face. He waited him out as patiently as he could, not even reaching for his weapon even though he well knew that he should’ve been.

“It’s a long story,” Sean said eventually, his voice gone quiet now in a way that he really didn’t like. “But, and I promise you this, there is one.”

He hesitated for a long moment. Knowing, in his heart of hearts, that he should just pull out his stake and be done with this entire charade… And also knowing, on some level even deeper, that the possibility of doing such a thing had passed the moment he’d walked in the door and seen Sean crumpled on the floor. “Say you tell it to me.”

“Alright,” Sean said, obviously surprised but pleased. And pleased in a proper way too, judging by the slight wrinkle around his inhuman eyes. Sean was all smiles and charm to everyone, the Sad Saint of the East End extending abundant kindness to all, but he was very rarely completely satisfied. It was always a privilege to see that wrinkle around his eyes, that slightly softer curve of his lips, the way the tension drained from his shoulders like he could finally set his impossible burden down. “I suppose it all started when I walked into Harriet Jones’ room…”

The summary of events that followed told him nothing that he didn’t already know, but was still undeniably charming in its thoroughness. Sean told it all in his usual calm way, seeming reluctant to leave even a single detail out in case it was the vital piece that helped to convince him. He told of walking into that Jones woman’s room, of like recognising like, of a rather dramatic break out plan that can’t have been entirely Sean’s idea given his usual steady temperament. He told of a quick flight back to the docks, deftly avoiding his patrols along the way, and Jones’ insatiable rage once they’d got there. He told of a murder, one that he’d decidedly disapproved of, and a sharp parting of the ways soon afterwards. He told, in vague terms, of how he directed Jones to a safe place where she would be at home. And then he told of Reid, that posh Ekon fucker with his stupid beard and his stupider mask of decency, coming to find him with much the same questions as him on his lips.

“The good Doctor Reid didn’t believe me at first, much like you aren’t believing me now,” Sean told him, now sat in a more comfortable cross legged position on the floor as he continued with his recitation. “And so I sent him to talk to some actual skals, and see the truth of what was going on. He was gone longer than I expected, so long that I half thought he’d been eaten by that mythical sewer beast people around here fret over, but in the end he did return. And when he returned, he believed me.”

“And so he embraced you with joy, and you had a la di da conversation about what good people you are?” He asked, feeling ridiculously jealous at the thought of Reid - irritatingly handsome, irritatingly soft spoken Reid - anywhere close to his Sean. And then immediately paused, used his brain and actually noticed the fixed expression on Sean’s face. “Or not, as it happens. Sean, did he do something to you?”

“Ol- A longstanding friend of mine whose name I should not mention told him a lot of information about how Skals work,” Sean explained softly, stared briefly up at his shrine and then shamefully down at his hands. “Apparently, as it turns out, if a Skal drinks the blood of a Ekon he will be fully stabilised. No more desire for flesh and blood, just a perfectly sensible unlife waiting ahead of him.”

He should’ve probably just been horrified by the blood drinking in general, instead he was more horrified by the specific thought of Reid offering his blood to Sean. “So you drank from him happily, just like that?”

"Yes," Sean said, and then hesitated for a long moment in a way that his hands balling up into fists despite himself. "And no. It's complicated. He meant well, I think, but initially I didn't see it that way. I was resistant, I thought that I could handle it by myself and that it was God's will that I do so."

He understood that, as much as he wished that he didn't. He wasn't a good Catholic boy like Sean, not anymore, but he still had the battered and bruised remnants of his faith tucked away. In some ways, his entire life had been a holy crusade. "So he forced you?"

Sean hesitated yet again, and he knew a moment of pure and brutal impatience. "Yes, and-"

"Sean." He reached out to cup Sean's face on instinct, winced for a moment when he felt the subtly chill flesh properly touching his but didn't withdraw despite every single one of his instincts screaming for him to. "Don't say that it's complicated, just tell me what the bastard did to you."

"He saved me," Sean said quite simply, and then proved his fears absolutely spot on by closing his eyes and starting to shudder. "He just did so by breaking down my composure, shaking my faith and reminding me unflinchingly of several things I've spent my entire life trying to forget."

"He threw the memory of that priest fucker in your face, didn't he?" He asked in steadily dawning horror, and found himself surging to his feet in a moment of pure rage when Sean hesitated briefly and then gave a reluctant nod. "I am going to _kill_ that bastard-"

But Sean didn't let go of him. Sean only kept holding on, with a strength he swore he hadn't possessed before, and tilted his head back to give him a terribly resigned look. "Before or after you kill me?"

It would've genuinely been less of a shock if Sean had just turned around and punched him in the face. His jaw dropped open, and he felt the fury drain from him quicker than it ever had before. He sunk back to the ground without resistance, stared at Sean wordlessly as he tried to make sense of what'd just happened.

Sean looked immediately apologetic, which somehow made the whole thing worse. "I'm sorry, that was uncalled for."

"No, I think it was perfectly called for considering everything. Jesus Christ, Sean," he said weakly, passing a hand over his face. And then, even though he knew it was a great deal more complicated than that: "Sorry."

"It doesn't hurt to hear you speak in such a way. I wouldn't be as happy with this state as I am, if it did," Sean said gently, still watching him with those horribly wary eyes "...Are you going to kill me?"

"I should," he said bleakly, and couldn't help a wince as Sean drew in a sharp breath of air. "I've dedicated my entire life to the Guard of Priwen, and that's just what we do. Killing monsters, fighting evil, saving the world. All that good shit."

Sean was a smart guy, more on the up and up than a lot of doctors he'd met. He saw between the lines instantly. "That doesn't answer my question, Geoffrey."

"I don't _know_ , alright?" He snapped, and all of his hard fought composure melted away and left only a horribly raw feeling behind. "I should, I really should. I came here with every intention of, if I really had found you turned into a monster, putting you down like you deserved and making this entire area safe for just a little longer. But now I see you, still looking so much like yourself, and I can't. I _can't_."

There was a long moment of silence. He wasn't surprised to realise that they were both shaking, like leaves in the wind.

"Geoffrey," Sean said eventually, and his voice was desperate yet again. "I still _am_ myself."

"But you can't be. You _have_ to be a ravening monster who only wants blood, or else nothing that I've ever done makes any kind of sense." He hadn't felt this out of sorts in decades, like he could just blow away if anybody even looked at him funny. "I really loved you, you know. I really thought that I got to have something good for once in my life, that I got to have my Sad Saint all pure and innocent and nice. But no, this is just another thing that's going to get taken away from me."

It was the first time he'd said it out loud, the first time he'd ever admitted to any kind of tender feelings period. Sean's mouth popped open, and his eyes went wide. "Geoffrey…"

It was all too much, too harsh. He buried his head in his hands so Sean couldn't see the look on his face, drew in deep breath after deep breath as he struggled to hold back the tears. He hadn't cried properly since he'd been little more than a babe, but he was right on the edge now.

"Geoffrey, look at me." But Sean, as ever, wasn't willing to let him hide. He reached out, took his wrists in a firm grip and yanked them away from his face until they were eye to eye again. "Maybe I'm not entirely the person I once was, but I'm still myself enough that you don't have to kill me. I'm still the person that has walked with you through the darkest alleys, has laughed at your jokes for years now, has kissed you goodbye every single time you left my bed. I'm still the man who likes honey in his tea, and who stays up all night to polish the silverware, and who can still sing all your favourite songs from memory. I'm still the man who loves you, more than he's ever loved anybody in the world."

He stared across at Sean for a long moment, utterly torn. And then, before he could think better of it, gave in to what had been dragging at him for so long and reached out to yank Sean into his arms. Pressed together he could almost forget the reality of the world, could almost convince himself that he was just holding Sean on a totally normal day.

"Look, maybe we don't have to sort it all out tonight," Sean said, muffled against his chest. And then he wriggled back a little, just enough so they could look each other in the eye again. "maybe we can take our time with this, let things settle into their new shapes instead of immediately flying off the handle. Maybe we can just trust in the fact that I'm still me and you're still you, and that we're always going to work it out in the end. Maybe we can just _be_."

Another long moment stretched between them, as he considered that little bit of insanity that ran contrary to everything he'd ever believed.

He rose to his feet, ignoring Sean's grasping hands this time. Sean wasn't that much shorter than him, but he was lighter and had considerably less muscle mass. It was easy to pick him up, to carry him over to the bed and sit down with him wrapped in his arms.

Sean made a noise of surprise when he was first lifted, but then wisely decided not to protest. He only held onto him tightly, buried his head in the front of his coat and didn't speak for a long few seconds "...Does this mean you're listening to me?"

"Sort of. Maybe. As much as I ever do." He took in a deep breath, looked down at the man in his arms. His entire world had just turned on its head, but at least he still had Sean besides him. That had to count for something. "I'm still going to end you if I wake up to find you gnawing on my arm tomorrow morning, though."

It had been the weakest joke possible, barely even a joke at all, but Sean still laughed at it. "Fair."

He smiled despite himself, smoothed it out quickly but still couldn't resist the corresponding urge to tighten his arms around Sean's body. "And I'm still going to murder that Reid, the next time I see him."

"Geoffrey, _no_. He's a good man, he doesn't deserve to be hunted down like a dog for doing the right thing," Sean said sternly. And then, impossibly and wonderfully, started to smile once more. "Considering the way he chose to do the right thing, though, I _might_ be able to turn the other cheek if you roughed him up a little…"

Everything, he realised in one glorious moment, really was going to be alright. He gave a breathless laugh into Sean's hair; and, when Sean turned his head up in a slightly pointed manner, hesitated for only a moment before giving in to the inevitable and lowering his head for a kiss.


End file.
